Hell's Highwaymen

by Phillip Granath

  Fox and Hound

  Cort and the rest of the riders pushed hard across the desolate plain, racing towards a singular point on the horizon. As The Rose shrank away behind them and eventually vanished completely they all began to realize this was unlike any ride they had ever been on before. For Cort, the realization came on suddenly when he found his heart pounding in his chest, and for the first time in a long time it wasn’t from exertion, fear or violence, it was the sheer joy of the ride he realized. The feeling of freedom that riding a fast horse had always given him, a simple joy that he hadn’t felt since his youth. Before the weight of responsibility had settled upon his shoulders before the war had touched and changed everything he loved. He found himself smiling as the dry air whipped past him and the animal moved tirelessly beneath him.

  The Lieutenant looked to his left and found that the other rides now matched his pace and the small troop now rode four abreast. There was a time when Cort would have shot them a menacing look or shouted a threatening curse to force them to fall back and allow him alone to ride point. But for the moment, at least, he couldn’t recall why such posturing had seemed so important to him. Oliver was the closest, the large Brit holding his fur cap in place with one hand as he rode. It looked ridiculous but the Dragoon’s face was one of pure bliss, and Cort realized he wasn’t the only one feeling this way.

  Oliver turned just then and as if reading the cavalryman’s thoughts asked, “You feel it too then?”

  “I do. I don’t know why, but I do.”

  “Is it the boy?” Oliver offered.

  Cort glanced past the Dragoon to where Danny rode behind Father Callahan. The boy had his arms wrapped around the priest tightly and even at a glance Cort could tell the boy had never been on horseback.

  “Perhaps, but I don’t think it’s that simple. I think it’s because we aren’t fighting the pull. For the first time we are riding towards it like we were always intended,” Cort replied.

  “It's more than that I’d wager. We’ve ridden towards the pull before in a fight or trying to avoid one. Not for long or for very far, but we’ve done it, and it's never felt anything like this before,” Oliver said.

  Cort nodded seeing the truth in his friend’s words, and his eyes settled back on Danny. Perhaps the difference wasn’t the direction they rode but why they rode. Colt tried to remember a time in the past century in which he had ridden for anything other than himself. Either riding down helpless souls or fleeing to save his very own. Could it be just that simple he wondered? That idealistic? He couldn’t be sure, but something inside of him wanted it to be just that.

  “Cort!” the priest shouted snapping the Cavalryman back to reality.

  Father Callahan pulled sharply on his horse’s reins causing the beast to pull to a halt quickly and nearly throwing the unexpecting Danny from the saddle. The rest of the riders followed suit and came to a halt in a cloud of choking dust.

  “Damn it Padre!”

  Cort wheeled his horse around to face the man. His feelings of inner peace having quickly evaporated. As the dust settled Cort found the priest standing in his stirrups and pointing to the horizon slightly to their left. There on the horizon, a dark line had appeared, a dark line that was followed by a haze of black smoke.

  “Now just what in the hell is that?” Oliver demanded.

  Cort pulled the brass spyglass from his saddlebag and focused on the distant line. Immediately it became clear to him that the line was actually many dark shapes moving together and belching black smoke in their passing. Distance and time were two things that never seemed very consistent in this place, but it still wasn’t hard to see that the bikers were headed their way and moving fast.

  “It’s The Horde,” Cort said lowering the glass for a moment.

  “Oh, nothing to fret over then,” Oliver said with relief.

  “I’m not so sure on that,” Cort replied.

  “Why is that? I thought we had a gentleman’s agreement with them, a truce of sorts,” Father Callahan pointed out.

  “That’s right, based on limitless souls and a mutual distaste for one another,” Oliver added.

  The lieutenant raised the spyglass again and he tried to refocus on the bikers.

  “They are looking rather flush, maybe two dozen deep I’d guess and if you haven’t noticed were a man down. I doubt that would give Cesar much incentive to keep up his end of any deal. Besides, do you think…” Cort began but then stopped abruptly mid-sentence.

  He threw a leg over his saddle horn and rested his elbow upon it trying to hold the glass as steady as possible. The bikers were clearer now, and he could make out the individual men and the steel horses on which they rode. He focused on the center of the line looking for the familiar outline of the potbellied gang leader. If Cesar had been overthrown and some other biker was now running things then perhaps the truce had died with him. But a moment later Cesar came into focus, riding just ahead of the line where he always had. Then an odd red and gray shape at Cesar’s right caught Cort’s eye. It moved differently than the rest of the bikers, but it was definitely moving with them.

  Cort sucked in a quick breath as the realization of what he was seeing struck him. The image quickly distorted and he lowered the spyglass, his hands were now shaking, trembling with barely contained rage.

  “He’s fucking dead. I’m going to end him. I’m going to put him down for good,” Cort suddenly shouted.

  “It’s Cesar then? He’s going to break the truce? He’s coming to try and drain us?” Oliver asked in confusion.

  “It’s Cesar alright,” Cort shouted wheeling his horse around as he quickly stowed his spyglass.

  “And yes, it looks like he means business. It also looks like Jamie is working for him now.”

  “No!” Oliver replied.

  The big man stood in his stirrups straining to get a better look at the quickly approaching line.

  “Why would he betray us?” Father Callahan quickly added.

  “Jamie asshole!” Shinji shouted earnestly.

  The cavalryman’s eyes settled back on the quickly approaching Horde, and for a brief moment, Cort fought the urge to kick his horse into what could only be a suicidal charge. How many times had he done this? Leading men into seemingly impossible odds, both when he was alive in the war or here, after his death, but this time something was different. Cort glanced back to the boy that now clung desperately to the priests back, fighting hard not to be thrown from the saddle. Cort realized that this time they had a chance at something, something greater. I chance to maybe escape this place and perhaps even see their loved one again. That hope was just too precious a thing to risk.

  “I’ll be damned If I know what Jamie’s playing at, but I don’t want to wait around to ask him. We Ride!” Cort shouted kicking his horse into motion.

  Cort’s ghostly steed bolted forward, and the rest of riders quickly followed after him. The pounding hooves kicked up a cloud of dust in the rider’s passing, and a moment later The Horde’s bikes roared in reply. Cort hung low in his saddle, laying across his mount’s back, trying to cut his resistance to the wind as his fellow riders did the same. Cort shouted no directions and the group needed none, they would run towards the pull from now on.

  As the troop thundered across the barren plain, the riders already knew how this story would play out. Everything in this twisted place was a darker version than its real-world counterpart, and as much as the cavalryman didn’t want to admit it, that meant the horde’s cycles were faster than their horses. Given enough time and distance, two things of which there was no shortage of here, the bikers would undoubtedly run them down.

  Cort couldn’t help himself any longer and risked a glance back. Through the haze of the rider’s dust cloud, it was clear the pursuing bikers were gaining on them. Now two dozen dark shapes spread out behind them in a wall of steel and smoke nearly a hundred yards wide. Jamie was now clearly riding on Cesar’s right at the center of the line.

  �
�Leftenant, Leftenant!” Oliver shouted from Cort’s right.

  “What is it, damn it?” he shouted back.

  “I hope you don’t mind me saying, but their better be another step to this plan. I think it’s growing clearer by the minute, we can’t outrun these bastards,” Oliver shouted.

  “Thanks for the fucking update!” Cort shouted in reply.

  “We need to lose them, buying us distance won’t do us any good. Eventually, they will catch up!” the priest shouted.

  “This would be a lovely time for a maze of canyons or hell even Jerry’s damned snowstorm,” Oliver added.

  “No use wishing for what we don’t got,” Cort shouted in reply.

  “We can’t outrun them, and we can’t hide from them. I guess that means we’ll just have to kill them then,” Cort announced.

  “No arguments here,” Oliver said with a grin.

  “That means we need to choose the ground, we need someplace we can defend,” Cort said as he looked sideways and met Father Callahan’s eyes.

  “I seem to remember seeing a place once, a low hill ringed with rock walls,” the cavalryman offered.

  Father Callahan looked away shaking his head, “Damn you, Cort!”

  “More than less,” the cavalryman shouted back in reply.

  “I don’t know if I can, it’s been too long,” the priest offered meekly.

  “Padre, we need this,” came Cort’s reply.

  Then a moment later he added, “We’ll avoid the house if we can.”

  The priest paused for a moment and then weakly nodded his consent. The motion was imperceptible on the back of the speeding horse, it’s was the stern look in his eyes that told Cort the priest was now concentrating on places and people he would rather leave forgotten.

  With his arms clutched around the priest’s midsection, Danny felt Father Callahan’s body suddenly tense. The boy still wasn’t sure how much of the insanity around him was real or perhaps the results of a terrible drug trip, but for the moment at least, the danger seemed real enough.

  “What are you doing? What is happening?” Danny stammered.

  The priest took a quick breath and replied, “Here your worst memories can be made real. That is, if you have the will for it and can face down your fears.”

  “What? I don’t understand,” Danny replied honestly.

  The young priest didn’t reply, instead he closed his eyes and there, in the midst of their desperate escape tried to picture the rolling hills of his youth, the Irish lowlands and with it his ancestral home. A moment later the place came to life in his mind’s eye with surprising ease and in stunning detail. The vibrant green fields filled with herds of sheep and crisscrossed by low rock walls. The poor shepherd boys with their long sticks and dogs diligently tending them. As a boy, he remembered feeling jealous of them, they ran and tended the flocks each day seemingly happy and free. He had told his father as much one night and had tasted the switch for it. His Father told him his crime was, “Emulating the peasantry and being disrespectful to his forefathers in doing so.”

  That had been it, the first time he had really questioned if his father was a good man. With those thoughts, the sunshine of his youthful memories faded and the images in his mind shifted to the last time he had seen the place. The fields were fallow and overgrown now. A light but steady sprinkling of rain fell from a slate gray sky. The manor house that his family had called home for five generations sat on the hilltop, still proud and defiant against the onslaught of time. He saw himself storming out through the heavy wooden doors. His father’s voice trailing out after him, accusing him.

  “You’re a disgrace and a fool, a traitor to your birthright.”

  A dozen or more insults followed after the young man. His Father followed him out into the rain, still in his stocking feet, and shouted at his back, but the freshly ordained priest never looked back. The senior Callahan gave up his pursuit at the first rock wall, breathing hard his energy if not his anger for the moment spent. From there he watched his only son walk down the muddy slope and out of his life forever.

  As cold raindrops began to fall on Father Callahan’s face, his eyes came open but he found the image before him did not change. The desolate plain had shifted into his dreary ancestral home. The sloping hills were now even more overgrown than he recalled and the brown and yellow fields nearly knee deep in wild, unkempt grass. The dark rock walls looked decayed, and at places, they leaned drunkenly. At the hill’s peak, the once grand manor house lay in ruins, with most of the second floor it seemed having collapsed down onto the first.

  “Nicely done Padre!”

  Cort shouted as he and the other riders charged up the grassy slope. The priest nodded dumbly, slightly confused for a moment. The summoning had happened so effortlessly, and so quickly that he was simply stunned. For a moment, he glanced down at Danny’s arms wrapped around his midsection and began to wonder.

  “Hey priest, shouldn’t we be running away still?” Danny asked with concern.

  Before Father Callahan could reply a shot rang out and ripped through the air close to the priest’s head. Without risking a glance backward, the priest kicked his horse into motion and raced up the grassy slope after Cort and the other riders. The roar of the biker’s engines was now clear and growing at an alarming pace.

  The slope was gentle at first but the grass was deep and the ground beneath soft and wet. The horse’s hooves dug in with each stride but while a few of the other riders slowed and had to fight fought to keep their mounts upright the priest did not. These were the very slopes on which a much younger Callahan had first learned to ride. Here he feared nothing while in the saddle and in turn neither did his mount. The priest quickly closed the gap with the other riders, and the four of them reached the first rock wall at the same time. The rider’s horses jumped the barely 4-foot wall easily and the moment their hooves were back down to earth Cort was out of his saddle and shouting orders.

  “We hold them here as long as we can. Shinji and Oliver take the flanks, I’ll hold the center. Padre, you and the boy, stay low and close to me.”

  Without a word in reply, the troop spread out with Shinji pushing to the left nearly a hundred feet where he found a small brush to provide him some cover. Oliver did the same on the right, stopping just beside a wooden gate, the only apparent break in the ring of stone walls.

  Below them, the first of the Bikers reached the base of the grassy slope and without pause roared upward. Through the rainy haze Cort could see Cesar clearly now, the gang leader was furious and shouting to his men. It seemed the bikers couldn’t hear him over the sound of their own motors or perhaps their bloodlust was up to the point that they just didn’t care. Either way, more than half of the riders rode blindly up the sodden slope in pursuit while the remainder held back, heeding Cesar’s commands.

  “Hold your fire, wait until their close and then make your shots count! Let the hill do the work for us, and Oliver, mind your fucking powder in this rain!” Cort shouted out.

  The Dragoon glanced at the sky as if realizing that for the first time that it was raining and then promptly removed his fur cap and placed it over the action on his flintlock. Tough their enemies closed in around them the simple move struck Cort as ridicules and he couldn’t help but laugh. Oliver looked up and gave him a toothy grin in reply.

  “Is gun hat now,” Shinji pointed out with a grin.

  The priest and even Danny joined in with nervous laughter as The Horde swarmed up the hill towards them. Cort risked a quick glance over the edge of the short wall and then looked at Father Callahan.

  “When I tell you, take Danny and lead the horses up to the next wall. Move quick, stay low and try and use the horses for cover. Most of these boys can’t shoot for shit, but Jamie is down there somewhere.”

  Father Callahan simply nodded in reply. As the sound of the approaching motorcycles grew to an almost unimaginable roar, the Cavalryman took a quick breath and then stood, his heavy revolver at the r
eady. To his surprise, he found a scene of utter chaos unfolding just below them. The biker’s wild charge had faltered, their heavy street bikes with their wide, smooth tires were having trouble climbing the muddy slope. Several were already down and their riders fighting hard and trying to right them on the uneven ground. Others were stuck, their spinning tires spraying dead grass and mud high into the air as their engines roared and their riders cursed.

  Two bikes managed to break free of the turmoil and seeing the Lieutenant raced forward, their momentum carrying them over the slickest of the terrain. Cort fired a single well-placed shot and then bolted to his left, firing again trying to draw the rider’s attention. The first shot struck home, hitting the man high in the chest and sending him cartwheeling backward off his bike. The second biker turned sharply trying to follow the running cavalryman. He gripped a chrome pistol in his hand and fired half a dozen wild shot as he fought to keep the big bike up. But the machine was simply moving too fast and the bike went down on its side pinning the rider against the wet ground and sliding until it smashed into the base of the rock wall.

  Cort ducked down behind the wall again and after a quick breath peeked back over the wall. A pair of quick shots ricocheted off the stones just in front of him. The biker was down with one leg pinned beneath his wrecked bike, but the man was still in the fight it seemed.

  “You're fucking dead, all of you. I’m gonna shoot you full of holes and then fuck the holes!” the man screamed.

  Cort paused at the biker’s oddly specific threat, then he glanced down the wall to where Father Callahan and Danny still crouched, “What?” he mouthed, and the priest could only shrug back in reply.

  Further down the wall, another bike cleared the slope, and as it neared the wall, the rider sprouted a black arrow from his chest. The man let out a terrible scream, but a heartbeat later the scream turned into a wet gurgle as a second arrow appeared in the man’s throat. The bike careened into the rock wall forcing Shinji to dive for cover and catapulting the wounded biker into the air. The man landed with a sick wet crack a dozen or so feet away. The warrior moved to the dead man’s body quickly retrieving his arrows with a few quick tugs and then he took a moment to drain the biker’s soul dry. Cort shot Shinji a toothy grin and then risked a quick glance over the wall to see if their trapped friend was still with them.